Quatorze Juillet
by ferain1832
Summary: On the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, Enjolras and Combeferre have their first deep conversation: on revolution, Robespierre and whether the end does justify the means after all.


Le Quatorze Juillet

A week after inviting the young student Enjolras to live in his apartment, Combeferre had found him filling up a glass, using water from his aquarium.

"What are you doing, Enjolras?" he asked, as politely as he could, fearing for the safety of his fish.

"Getting water for my flower," Enjolras said nonchalantly. "I hope you don't mind? It was almost overflowing anyway. It would have spilt onto your books. "

Combeferre decided not to lecture the young man on the amount of oxygenated water required by five rare fish and focused instead on the flower. From what he had seen of Enjolras in the two weeks of their acquaintance, he was not at all the Romantic type.

"A rose," Enjolras said, nodding at the chaise longue in the corner that he had appropriated for his own use as a bed. Indeed, a large red rose with a long dewy stem was lying on the quilt.

"Where did you get it from?" Combeferre came up and took it to examine. "It is magnificent." It was, deep red with luxurious petals, deceptively delicate, mesmerising with its thick scent.

"Isn't it?" Enjolras smiled. "I bought it from a flower girl on the Rue Saint-Jacques. I don't care much for flowers but this one caught my eye."

"It's worth it," Combeferre said appreciatively.

"You see," Enjolras said, with another candid smile that Combeferre was growing to be very fond of, "I thought I could dedicate it. A tribute to tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

Enjolras looked at him with stark disapproval. It was perplexing how the expression in his blue eyes could turn from charming to somewhat frightening within the space of a second. "The 14th of July," he said. "Need I explain more?"

"Of course not," Combeferre said. He had got caught up in his studies and lost track of time. "Then this rose is a tribute for the fallen heroes?"

"Yes," Enjolras said, proceeding to put the rose in the glass and position it in a prominent place on the bookshelf. "As well as those that did not fall, or fell a while later."

"You must mean the two factions?" Combeferre asked cautiously.

"Particularly the Jacobins," Enjolras said, stepping back to admire the scene. "They have been shamefully misrepresented by Ultras and traitors."

"This may well be so," Combeferre said, surprised to hear such radicalism spoken openly. "However, I do not think we can deny that the actions of these people, Robespierre among them, have led to unforgivable atrocities."

"How so?"

"How so?" Combeferre repeated, a little shocked. "My dear Enjolras, can you really sanction the arbitrary execution of thousands of people?"

"Yes, if it is to repay for the millions of people the Ancien Régime has executed arbitrarily," Enjolras said, his eyes flashing angrily. "If it is to cleanse the nation of parasites, of leeches, of murderers; if it is to free and uplift the people that have suffered for so long; if it is for the salvation of the most wretched, then yes, a hundred times yes."

Combeferre sighed. "I agree that this is perhaps the first time thousands have been killed for a virtuous and praiseworthy idea. Yet it was still a crime, Enjolras. I shall not begin to discuss whether the true offenders deserved death, that is another question entirely. Yet there were innocent people caught up in the butchery or people who offended because they did not think or did not know better."

"One simply cannot bring about a better future without shedding blood," Enjolras affirmed. "In the world we live in that is impossible. Were we to stage another storming of the Bastille, people would die, perhaps innocents. That is a tragedy, I agree, yet it is necessary."

"Have you ever read _Othello_, Enjolras?"

"Once," he said, looking confused.

"Do you remember the ending of the play? Othello murders Desdemona to preserve his honour, thinking she is unfaithful to him," Combeferre said gently. "When Lodovico laments the loss of the nobility he had shown at the outset, do you remember what Othello says?"

Enjolras shrugged his shoulders.

"_What shall be said to thee? - Why, anything: an honourable murderer, if you will; for nought I did in hate, but all in honour._"

"So?"

"It is very well that Robespierre and the rest did their murders not_ in hate but all in honour_," Combeferre said quietly. "They may be_ honourable murderers_, but murderers they are still."

Enjolras pursed his lips. "You cannot call them murderers. A murderer kills for pleasure and profit. They killed for the good of mankind."

"That is an awful paradox, don't you think?" Combeferre smiled sadly. "To kill men for the good of men."

"That may be so," Enjolras said, sounding almost defensive, "yet what would you do? In that time as well as in ours, progress has to be bled out."

"Perhaps, unfortunately."

"Then what are you trying to tell me?"

Combeferre remained silent, thinking of the best way to put it. He desperately wanted to make Enjolras understand him. There was a dangerous aura lingering around the frail young man despite his angelic beauty, or perhaps because of it. He did not seem entirely of this world.

"I want you to make a distinction," he said at last, "between the different shades of rectitude. Something may be right morally but not physically or vice versa, and laws often do not match rights. One can act righteously, yet commit a legal crime in the process; or one can be in the legal right yet in the moral wrong. Then, one can be at the same time right and wrong. That Robespierre was acting for the good of the people is right. That he killed thousands in the process is wrong. It is wrong for the right reasons, yet the action is wrong, you must admit that."

Enjolras sat down on the chaise longue, in his eyes a terrible sadness.

"How can anyone act boldly when faced with such ambiguity?" His voice was barely audible over the street cries outside.

Combeferre walked over and sat beside him. "We live in paradoxical times," he said, trying to comfort his new friend who seemed to be seeing complex matters of philosophy as a personal affront. "This must be another problem to reform - that moral and physical rectitude is perfectly aligned and no one is killed, or compelled to kill, for their ideas."

He was glad to see Enjolras smile. "You are perfectly correct, Combeferre," he said, standing up. "Thank you."

Almost precisely eight years later, Combeferre watched as Enjolras gripped the pistol, still smoking in his hand from the man he had just executed; and seeing the same deep sadness reappear on that pale face, he perceived once again that the first profound discussion they have ever had was not in vain.


End file.
